Angela Finds a New Gear in the New Year
by CadyBoss3344
Summary: It's New Year's Eve 1986 and Angela finds that something's missing in her life. Tony offers to help.


Angela Finds a New Gear For the New Year

"It's just another New Year's Eve, another night like all the rest; it's just another New Year's Eve, let's make it the best..." Tony glared at Barry Manilow warbling away on the radio; his foul mood was exerting itself irrationally as he muttered at the oblivious singer, "yeah, it's a great New Year's Eve. The ball has already dropped in Times Square, the kids have deserted me and gone to sleep, Mona may not return from her date until next New Year's Eve...and Angela?" He tried not to think about Angela. She went out to some swanky party at the Country Club with Geoffrey with a G. She looked fantastic when she left too, all swathed in a figure hugging and flattering, strapless gold lamé gown with a slit up to...he didn't want to think where up to. Needless to say, she looked great and he once again rued the wedding day he let her slip away.

Tony flopped down on the couch to watch the New Year's Eve celebrations in whatever time zone they were going on in now. He idly picked a pillow off the couch and was absent-mindedly punching it. The radio still played in the background, some countdown of the greatest hits ever in the history of music was going on, but he wasn't paying much attention to it. He wasn't paying much attention to anything except the memory of Angela in that dress and how much he'd like to...

The front door suddenly opened, sending a gust of brisk January air into the house. Angela was home. Tony gleefully and silently noted that Geoffrey with a G had not been invited into the house for a New Year's Eve nightcap. "Tony, you're still up?" Angela asked, surprised to see him all alone on the couch.

The answer was obvious, but he had to say it anyway, "yeah, I'm up," he said as he adjusted the pillow over his lap. "How was the party?"

"Oh, you know...dancing, champagne, 'Happy New Year'...it's been done before."

"You don't sound enthused."

Angela walked over to the mirror, took off her wrap and placed it on one of the pegs. Facing away from Tony she said, "oh, it isn't that...it's just the same old, same old...year after year."

"Yeah, I could see how a nice party and champagne would wear thin after a while."

Angela walked over to the couch, seeing the glint in Tony's eyes made her smile. She'd missed him tonight. She was supposed to be having a good time, but the party felt incomplete without him there. She should have listened to her mother and spent the evening here at home with the family. Not that her mother would have been here, of course, but the rest of the family was. She'd missed out on a party with Jonathan, Samantha and Tony for what? A glass or two of champagne and a peck on the lips from Geoffrey? In retrospect, it hadn't been the best choice she'd ever made. None of the choices she'd made where Geoffrey was concerned were among the best choices she'd ever made.

Tony welcomed Angela as she sat next to him on the couch. "We shot some hoops here, had a non-alcoholic toast at midnight. The kids conked out not long after that."

"Sounds very PG, Tony."

"It's been a PG kind of a year," he answered. "Unfortunately," his mind pestered.

Angela's sympathetic look was masking her true emotion of wanton lust. Tony looked so good just sitting there on the couch. There was nothing wrong with Geoffrey's looks, but he just didn't have the charisma Tony had.

Tony took another look at Angela, "I'm still hoping for R," ran through his head, fortunately he did not say that random thought out loud.

"Geoffrey's rather PG too. I mean, you know. Very pedantic. Geoffrey, PG." There was an unsatisfied aura in her words.

"Prissy Git, you mean?" Tony said, not at all apologetic.

"Tony! He's not prissy...he's neat and precise," she said to Tony. "And boring as hell in the sack," she said to herself.

"So here we are, Ang, a very PG evening and year. Fine, so he's a Precise Git." Tony backed away from insulting Geoffrey, not wanting to insult Angela's taste in men, even if her taste was insulting. "He's a perfect gentleman, PG."

Angela took Tony's insinuated challenge, "Tony, sometimes perfect gentlemen are like inept mechanics."

This piqued Tony's interest immensely, "how is Geoffrey...in the garage?"

"In the garage?" Angela looked everywhere except at Tony, "well...he doesn't really know his way under a hood."

"Or around any other part of a car," Tony guessed; correctly. He could see that Angela was searching for something and was determined to do his best to coax it out of her, "I see. That's not good for the car's engine. It needs to be warmed up and revved...and taken beyond the limits it doesn't even know it has."

Tony and Angela surprised themselves by realizing they were leaning in to each other. Angela's cheeks were flushed, and not from the cold weather. Her breathing was quickened and her lips parted. Tony's physical reactions matched hers.

Angela spoke huskily, "and you know your way inside? A car? Beneath its hood?"

"Angela, I can make any engine purr."

Angela gulped. "I'll bet you can," she whispered.

"We are talking about the same thing here, aren't we?" Tony tried to confirm.

"I think we are." Par for the course in the Tony and Angela relationship they danced around their true feelings for each other.

Angela decided to put this car into first gear, "it's about to hit midnight somewhere on the planet, isn't it?"

"Yes, and your point is?" he answered.

"Happy New Year," she leaned in to kiss a very surprised, but definitely not unwilling, Tony.

"I shouldn't be doing this!" screamed a voice in Angela's head. "Shut up!" screamed a louder voice. Angela's head listened to the louder voice and continued kissing Tony.

Tony continued kissing her too, not being bothered by any voices in his head. He wrapped his arms around this angel and pulled her closer, making sure this New Year's kiss obliterated any memory of any kiss Geoffrey might have given her. To Tony it was as if Santa was delivering a late present this year and he certainly wasn't going to leave this one sitting under the tree, he was going to do his best to unwrap it as quickly as possible.

Angela succumbed to the pleasure of Tony's kiss, it was a bliss she had never experienced before and she never wanted it to end.

It could have been New Year's in another time zone by the time they finished kissing, neither was really sure.

Tony, being a good friend and only looking out for Angela's welfare asked a very sincere question, "Angela, does Geoffrey leave you longing for a, ahem, tune up?"

"A...a...what?" Angela's kiss addled brain couldn't quite understand Tony's question.

Tony had to be a little more direct, "when was your engine last revved? When did it hit its O...optimal gear?"

Angela's thoughts were racing, wondering what Tony could be proposing. Could he be offering her a full Tony Tune Up? And if so, just what would a TTU entail? The thought was intriguing. It wouldn't be easy, but she had to be honest with Tony, "not with Geoffrey," that was the easier part of her confession, now she had to be even more honest with Tony, "not ever. I don't even know what that feels like." Then Angela had to face a demon she long tried to ignore, facing it in the past only made her feel so unfeminine, so lacking in womanly know how that she always felt less than when she considered it. But this was Tony, if anyone could understand her problem, it was him. She took a deep breath and said, "I don't think this car's engine is capable."

Tony was determined to prove her wrong on that account. "With the right mechanic, Angela, any car can reach...optimal."

Tony was looking her straight in the eye, his sincerity almost her undoing. She had to look away, "oh, I don't know," she deflected, but secretly hoped Tony was correct.

Tony put his words where his thoughts were, "I could prove it to you. It's a waste for such a fine wom...er, car to be neglected in this fashion. It's unacceptable."

A brave Angela now looked Tony straight in the eye, "do you suggest we start the New Year with a bang? I do have a boyfriend you know. A PG boyfriend."

"He's a boyfriend who leaves your engine cold, that's not much of a boyfriend."

Angela was tempted; so very, very tempted. She bit her lip.

"I could bite that for you if you want," Tony offered oh so very unselfishly.

Angela whimpered and fretted. What would Tony do if she agreed to that? Would he really nip at her lip?

Angela quavered, "Tony...I wouldn't want to ruin our friendship. But...it is New Year's...we could just..." What even she wasn't sure; she didn't want to betray Geoffrey, but she so desperately wanted to experience her first optimal and have that Tony Tune Up. Under the rationalization of the New Year, Angela asked, "could you teach me? I could use a lesson from a mechanic."

"So you could show Prissy Git?"

"Tony, I just need to get the spark plugs...sparking; not a full ride home into the garage, ok?"

"Don't worry about Prissy Git. This would be for his benefit. I'm thinking a third base kind of thing." Tony wondered how many more metaphors they could mix in there; first cars, now baseball. It was very confusing. Even more confusing was the fact that The Beach Boys were now singing one of their hit songs on the radio, "she's my little Deuce Coupe, you don't know what I got..." Tony knew what he had in this fine woman sitting near him.

"Well, in that case Tony, would you like to check under the hood with your practiced mechanic's hands?"

All thoughts of prissy gits and baseball flew out of Tony's head; but another lyric of The Beach Boys wormed its way into his thoughts, one he was going to put into action, "...and she'll have fun, fun, fun..."

Yes, Tony was determined to make sure Angela had fun, fun, fun this New Year's Eve.


End file.
